1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for printing hospital labels and wrist bands, and more specifically, to a system having a capture station, wherein a master label is created, and multiple independent label stations, wherein additional labels may be printed based solely on information in the master label, without being connected to a data network.
2. Background Information
To improve efficiency, hospitals adopted a system, wherein each patient was given an embossed plastic card (much like a normal credit card), which was used to imprint multi-part forms. The embossed card included information, such as the patient's name, the patient's account number, medical record number, and doctor's name, as well as other patient demographic information. The embossed card was kept at a central location and made available to all medical personnel responsible to the patient. With any patient charting, medical procedure, or lab specimen that was taken, a form would first be imprinted with the information from the patient's embossed card, which would transfer the information contained on the embossed card to the form, label, or wristband using the ink roller on the imprinter for the top form and carbon or carbonless sheets for the underlying sheets. Then, the multiple copies of the form would be taken apart and the pages placed in the patient's chart and sent to various departments within the medical facility for record keeping and billing purposes. The multi-part forms were structured to be run through a motorized electric imprinter. The embossed card would be placed on the imprinter's anvil and the form placed over the top of the embossed card. The lid or top of the imprinter would be closed and the imprinter's motor would drive a hard ink roller across the anvil and transfer the embossed card information to each page of the multi-part form. This basic system, however, had many disadvantages. The embossing machines and the imprinting machines are both large and expensive. Additionally, the imprinting machine did not always function properly, whereby forms would be imprinted illegibly or torn and have to be prepared again.
It was desirable to have a label system structured to create labels which could be attached to the forms. These labels would contain the same or similar information as the embossed card and provide added features not possible with the embossed card system. One form of labeling system utilizes a small special-purpose computer with a built-in magnetic stripe reader, a printer, and card embosser with magnetic stripe encoding capabilities, and plastic cards with a magnetic stripe. The magnetic stripe on the card contains the encoded patient information. When the card with the magnetic stripe was inserted into the stripe reader, the information in the magnetic stripe was read, and a label was printed with the patient information. The disadvantage to the magnetic card system is that the magnetic stripe reading equipment is expensive. Additionally, the magnetic stripe can only contain a small amount of information that can be encoded onto the stripe.
Another system utilized printer stations coupled to a network. Data was input at the individual computer workstations by hospital personnel, and by sending printer commands over the network, a printed label was produced. This system, however, required that there be a network connection, meaning a hardwire or a wireless connection, at each location where a label printer was required to be, along with an accessible computer workstation that would give the access to send the information to the printer. Many hospitals, especially older hospitals, do not have enough network access ports in all locations where a label printer is required. Installing network access ports can involve a large financial expense for each additional port required for the label printers. Other systems, coupled to the hospital's network, utilize a laser printer to print out pages of labels for a single patient. In many cases, these labels were wasted as patient labels did not often require an entire sheet of patient printed labels. Additionally, the extra labels that are not used need to be shredded since they contain confidential patient information. These sheet labels are also damaging to the laser printers and can damage expensive internal components if the labels from the pages come off and adhere inside the printer.